About fitting in

I started watching anime, reading manga, and learning Japanese so that I have something to talk about when meeting friends, to prevent myself from having to sit there without knowing what the hell is going on when my friends talk about these stuff, to be able to understand and laugh at the inside jokes my friends make.

I started watching anime, reading manga, and learning Japanese to force a common interest between me and people I would soon meet in university, because pre-April 2009 me was probably a very much duller person who wouldn’t get along well with people even in university.

But it seems like this has backfired. I was told everyone has already ‘moved on’. I’m too late to the game.

And then there’s this whole ‘obsession’ thing. I have this ‘bad habit’ of wanting to be good at things that my friends are interested in.

Take for example Jubeat. Roger started playing Jubeat, Raphael started playing Jubeat, Meiyi started playing Jubeat, Aaron etc etc. I had to be in on that thing too. The trigger was the challenge between Aaron and I to see who can pass Evans first. This resulted in my spending hundreds of dollars on this arcade game, getting high scores in every single song on the game and perfecting my jubeat-playing skills. I was obsessed in showing off to my friends how good I’ve become in the game.

Same goes for anime. I became obsessed in catching up on every single show that my friends have watched, got myself a figurine in Cosfest 2009 because my friends had them too, buying manga after seeing Aaron’s personal collection etc. I wanted to know what that Odex thing was that people like Chang Xing and Raphael have been raging about during photog in JC.

I could list even more examples, like spending lots of time on the Ouendan-like game Osu! and Stepmania on PC, like listening to Touhou music and finding out about the ZUN-verse, like learning Colemak, like watching Evangelion 2.0 in theatres even before watching the original TV series or the first movie. The list goes on. The bottom line is, I simply didn’t like being left out of most of my friends’ discussions and meet-ups, and this led to my obsession in doing everything that my friends are interested in, just because.

I could easily do the same with LoL: read up everything about every single shit about this game, just so I can have something to contribute to the conversation at the dinner table with my friends. I mean, I should have done this earlier – giving up on anime and manga and plunging into LoL since most of them no longer talk about the former any more. And now I’m afraid that even if I start getting into LoL now, by the time I know enough about LoL, my friends would have already moved on to something else.

That said, I don’t regret starting my journey on this Japanese sub-culture. One side effect from this is that I get along much better with my sister now, who was into this whole anime/manga thing from way back since when onemanga.com was still a thing, and also, I wouldn’t be where I am now in my university life if I hadn’t started on this whole anime-watching and Japanese-learning thing.

What happened in the JSS club room last evening triggered this post. I did a bit of reflection and, through this post, concluded that I’m essentially an attention-seeking whore around my friends. Well, yippie-ki-yay motherfucker. Should I totally stop watching anime and reading manga because everyone has already moved on? I don’t know, what do you think? After all, I value other people’s opinions more than my own. I would have made a reference to Nagase Iori from Kokoro Connect about this but it seems like everyone is troubled by my interest in anime so I won’t go into detail about that.

——————————————-

Yeah, and stop that talk about me preferring anime characters over real people. You should know that most people who are like that don’t even bother going out of their house and mingle with real people. I’ll have you know that I take much offence in that so please stop.

Till the next time, it’s me, woonie, signing off.

A quick update – academic-related stuff from last semester

I miss the days when I write a proper blog post to express myself. Nowadays, I tend to write one-liners that probably wouldn’t be able to fully reflect my thoughts on Facebook. I want to fix that. I’ll probably try to write at least one post per fortnight.

Okay so, it’s been 6 months since my last post, which described my thoughts on my friends from secondary school and junior college leaving for universities overseas. Ironically, this is where Facebook comes in handy. It has become a very powerful tool in connecting people, no matter where they are on this planet. (Actually, that is describing the Internet in general, but you get my point.)

Also, it’s nice to be able to meet up with other secondary school friends who are studying in local universities, including the one I’m in right now. It’s hard to meet up, especially with clashing timetables, lots of homework, and other commitments to tend to. It was nice to be able to meet with Mervyn, Roger and Yuan Kang for lunch yesterday.

My study area. Might be unconducive to most others.

About school:

Results from previous semester:
1. CS1101S: B+
I was expecting to get this grade, and I got it. It was one of the tougher mods considering that I was (almost) completely new to programming, and this mod was the tougher basic programming mod compared to CS1010. I relished the challenge, though. It was also the last semester that this mod will ever be taught, which means I was part of the final batch of students for this class. There were many brilliant students taking this mod, as well as tutors, not to mention Prof Ben. It was indeed a privilege for me to work with them while building on my foundations of programming. It’s a pity, though, that I was unable to do better to get that A- that would allow me to take CS2020 this semester.

I mean, where else can you find such an awesome lecturer?

2. CS1231: B+
In all honesty, I’ve no idea what was going on for the first half of this module, as per at least half of those taking this module together with me. I’m also pretty sure that I bombed the final exam. However, I have to be grateful to have an awesome project team that included Ryan, Davin (a long-lost classmate from primary school) and 2 others.

At first, the grader gave us the lowest score for the entire batch. We appealed, considering that we got full marks for our pre-video storyboard submission and followed it closely in our video. And then we got another tutor to grade the video and we got the highest score for the entire batch. Awesome. How the hell did that happen? If not for that, I’m pretty sure I would have got a much worse grade for this module.

3. GEK1505: B+
Took this module with Kah Hou to fulfill university requirements. Honestly, I really deserve better, but I’ve only myself to blame for making too many careless mistakes in the midterms and final exams.

Yeah, he looks way younger on his profile photo in IVLE.

4. MA1521: B
I can safely say that I totally bombed the final exams for this one. But thanks to the bell curve god, I escaped a B-. I must say that Wang Fei was a good lecturer, though sometimes his magic tricks with Calculus can be really… magical. You don’t even know what hit you and where he pulls his methods from, and *poof*, you get Koko Krunch the answer is right there. It’s damn imba.

Your typical magic show.

5. LAJ2202: B-
A university language module is no joke. You’d think that just because you are already JLPT N4 certified, and have spent half a year studying for N2, the Japanese 3 module, covering Minna no Nihongo Lesson 26-38, will be a piece of cake. It really isn’t, because studying for the JLPT does not prepare you for writing and conversational skills at all, or at the very least, hardly ever. It’s a really awful feeling when you try to express what you want to say in Japanese, but fail horribly. I entered the semester confident of getting at least an A-, and ended with a grade which was 3 levels lower than my expectations.
Nevertheless, I’m planning to strive on to Japanese 6 one semester at a time, and subsequently take the Japanese Translation module.

Also, I’ve never seen a teacher that puts in more effort in their teaching and more time towards her students than Chiba-sensei, the module coordinator and lecturer. I can’t remember exactly how many students there are in this module, but it could easily be about a hundred, but she takes the time to personally go through the work of every single student prior to the exams, as well as do 1-to-1 consultation with each student. She’ll also make time for such consultations when you miss lectures (once for me, due to CS1101S practical exam).

When was the last time you saw a teacher work this hard for their students?

SAP: 3.71

I had the option of S/U-ing the B- in LAJ2202 and get 3.88, but decided that I would most likely get a C grade in some modules that are compulsory and require me to write essays.

Modules that I’m taking this semester:
1. CS1020
2. CS2100
3. ST2334
4. LAJ2203
5. SSA2204

Thankfully, this semester's timetable isn't as packed as the last, though I still have 7 hours of Japanese lessons as per last sem.

It’s already halfway through the semester, midterms having just ended last week. Until all my (potentially demotivating) midterm results come back, I will continue to believe that I am doing just a little better than last semester. Hopefully I will be able to get a SAP of more than 4.1 this semester to pull my CAP to more than 4.

I’ll probably talk more about other stuff, like hall-related activities, but that’s for next time. It’s already 4.30am woah.

Till the next time, it’s me, woonie, signing off.

Everybody’s Libyan

I mean, leaving.

It is at this point of time when I remember what Meiyi said about everybody leaving for university at the various countries in the world, caught up with school work and having activity commitments with new groups of people. It feels sort of surreal, recalling all the times we did all the things together – chilling at the piano, playing board games, LANning, mahjong, even mugging – then moving on to meeting every few weekends to take a break from the military and catching up with each other, and even now, still meeting up once in a while to do stuff. And then, for the next few years, we’ll be attending our respective universities, living out the school life that may or may not prepare us for the next stage of our lives as part of the working adults. And then we graduate and start working.

It makes me feel melancholic, just thinking about all these. Where has all the time gone?

(related video)

Time is marching on… and time… is still marching on… DUN DUN.

I know we should always be moving on to face the future, but I really hope we will still be able to meet up in the further future.

(Facebook doesn’t count.)

Another related video (I think):

———————————————-

Okay, back to calculus. Oh wait, it’s 4am.
…
nope. back to calculus.

Till the next time, it’s me, woonie, signing off.

CS1101S Rages

This is the 2nd week since tutorials started.

August 20 (Sat)
2.20pm: Figuring out Order of Growth
11.30pm: Realizing that CS1101S DG is on Monday and not on Wednesday (Recitations).

August 23
1.20pm: Clueless about lambda.
4pm: Coding in MA1521 Lecture

August 26
3.50am: Sudden realization that Mission 4 is due on Saturday 2359h (27th) and not Sunday 2359h (28th).
4.20am: Also, not sure about the difference between unit-circle and alternative-unit-circle.
4pm: Coding in MA1521 Lecture again, instead of listening to lecture.  Finally able to complete Lecture 5 Path.

August 28
7.50pm: Trying to figure out how to merge curves into a single curve in Side Quest 4. 1
9.20pm: Realizing that Ctrl+I should be used in DrRacket and not in the JFDI code window.
11pm: Sudden realization about parametrics.
11.45pm: Submission of SideQuest 4.1 just before deadline.

August 29
3.55am: Can’t remember how rcomp works.
1pm: Submission of Mission 5
2pm: Submission of Sidequest 5
6.10pm: Pon GEK1505 lecture to do coding.
9.35pm: Thankful for deadline extensions. Submission of Mission 6.

August 30
12.25am: Full marks for 2 side quests and 2 missions in a row? Deadline extensions? I know everyone else has been keeping a perfect streak since Mission 1 but for me… :everythingwentbetterthanexpected.jpg;
2.35am: Changing drRacket settings – open new racket files in new tab instead of new window. -_-
3.55am: Still here at UTown coding Mission 7. Task 3 Done!

———————-

I’m really neglecting all my other subjects, am I not? This thing is addictive.

Till the next time, it’s me, woonie, signing off.

Blog Revival

Revival Post なう (Also, finally a blog post posted under the ‘School Life’ category woo~)

So, after 9 months of whiling my time away as a NEET, I’m officially back in school where I can learn to become less of a burden to society.

Modules that I’m taking this semester:
1. CS1101S
2. CS1231
3. MA1521
4. GEK1505
5. LAJ2202

At the same time, as a resident of Raffles Hall, I’m planning to embark on
1. RHMP Technical Crew
2. Board of Photographers
3. ComMotion
4. Softball
assuming that I get accepted into these activities.

Simultaneously, I have registered as an official member of the Japanese Studies Society, as well as indicated an interest in joining the NUS Contract Bridge Club.

Tutorials haven’t even started, not to mention hall activities, and somehow, I’m already foaming really badly. Yet, I chose to torture myself with my module choices – that of choosing to take on Scheme as a non-programmer, as well as Japanese 3 taught by a certain notorious Chiba-sensei. And due to my masochistic love for Mathematics, I’m taking Discrete Structures [To F1 or not to not F1... what is the question??], as well as Calculus (for Computing) [actually, they were pre-allocated, but that's besides the point].

Year 1 Semester 1 Timetable - I can go kill myself already. (Also, tool for potential stalkers.)

(Oh, I don’t think I mentioned that I’m also taking Japanese classes at Ikoma at the same time.)

So now that I’m done with officially reviving this blog, I can now proceed with posting trivial school-related rages on this blog.

…

I still have not figured out how to manage my non-lecture/tutorial time. Woe.
Well, I see that my very first tutorials as an NUS student will be GEK1505 and CS1101S so I guess I should clear these first?

————————————

Meanwhile, I’ll leave all [redacted]-related stuff to my livejournal, as always.

Till the next time, it’s me, woonie, signing off.

About GEP entrance

Today, in ST Life pg E8:
Letter from Ng Ah Cheng –

I sent my elder girl to Bukit Timah Primary School. [...] she was selected for the GEP along with 13 of her schoolmates.

Seriously, what’s with Bukit Timah Primary School (formerly known as Bukit Batok) and GEP? My batch from BBPS had 10 going to into GEP.

President Mubarak steps down

2011/02/11 1603GMT – Egypt VP Suleiman announces President Mubarak stepping down after 30 years of presidency.

I’ve been watching the livestream on Al-Jazeera for the past 2 hours, it’s 2am, and I can’t bring myself away from witnessing every minute following this really historic moment.

It’s really heartwarming to hear the emotions of the Egyptian Al-Jazeera reporters when the anchorman from the studio asks them to remove his reporter’s hat and not be impartial for a moment and tell the viewers how he is feeling.

“It’s not sunk in yet.
I’m shocked that it actually happened so quickly.
It used to really upset me that it reached a point that 85 million people only have 1 choice of a leadership.
[...]
I couldn’t believe that the government unravelled all its darkest secrets in 48 hours.
Cairo become an unrecognizable city.”

“Okay, now you may put on that reporter’s hat again as we proceed on with the coverage of the Egypt Revolution.”

Hey Egypt, this is your chance to get the future you want for yourselves and your country. Please do not screw this up, and I wish you a smooth, safe and peaceful transition to your next government.

Twitter tag #jan25 never forget.

Leaving on a jet plane

…but will be back on the 2nd.

See you guys in 17 days.

Till the next time, it’s me, woonie, signing off.

The obligatory ORD LOH post

ORD LOH. FREEDOM BECKONS IS FINALLY HERE.

pre-NaNoWriMo 2010

As November looms, I ask myself a question that I have been posing to myself for the past few years: Do I really want to try NaNoWriMo, again? 3 failed attempts since 2005. w00t.